I started writing this before I even got to Episode 26- any inaccuracies are probably down to that. Thanks for reading!

"Oh right, Mr. and Mrs. Fancybottom- I have your name in the ledger right here." The human behind the desk smiles at them cheerfully. Their smile seems to be permanently pasted on. "Here's your room key."

"Thanks," Beau says, and takes the key. She attempts a smile in return, gives it up when Caleb elbows her hard in the side, and spins on a heel. "This," she tells Caleb in an undertone as they leave the front desk, "Is the worst plan ever."

"I know that, Beauregard," Caleb says, irritated. "I don't want to be married to you either." Beau punches him hard on the arm. "Ow!"

"That's a rude thing to say to a lady," Beau says. "Especially your wife."

Caleb holds his arm and angles himself defensively away from her. "You are the worst wife ever," he mutters.

"What?"

"Nothing."

The town they're in is a tiny thing in the middle of nowhere, which means that it's isolated enough to be super racist. The Nein had been hired by some concerned citizens on the outer reaches of the city to take down the cult that ran the town. It had some super obvious name, like the Blood Purity Society or something like that.

The group nominated Team Human to do the job. Which meant going to the fanciest inn in town, where the Society held their meetings, and going undercover as hapless tourists. Though why anyone would come here on purpose is beyond Beau.

Neither Caleb nor Beau are having a good time, and the mission has just started.

They trek up the stairs. Beau ignores the bustle of the tavern below with what she considers to be superhuman strength. She's going to need a drink or ten after spending a week honeymooning with Caleb.

Beau jingles the room key, slotting it in the door. "Aren't you going to carry me over the threshold or something?" she asks. "Pretty sure you're supposed to do that?"

Caleb eyes her and scrunches his shoulders. "I do not think I am strong enough for that."

"Hey!" she punches his arm again.

"Stop doing that!" Caleb hisses. "I don't know why you keep punching me!"

Beau opens her mouth to answer. A woman walks by them in the hall- a human, of course, and it's strange after so much time with the Mighty Nein to be in a place so homogenous- and they get closer to each other and try to smile. Both of them, so far as Beau can tell, are doing a terrible job at it.

The human passes by.

"Fine," Beau says, and plants her feet before picking Caleb up and slinging him over her shoulder.

Caleb yelps, swearing in Zemnian. Beau grins at the human woman, who's paused at the top of the stairs to watch them, wide-eyed, and kicks the door open the rest of the way.

"I hate you," Caleb says, muffled into her robes. She suplexes him onto the bed and flexes. He lays there, face-down, muttering.

Beau laughs and hops on the bed beside him, jumping hard enough that he gets bounced and has to sit up to avoid being rolled off the bed entirely.

"I really hate you," Caleb says.

"No you don't," Beau says.

"When can we get out of this hellscape?" Caleb asks.

Beau shrugs. "The Society's meeting is supposed to be tomorrow, so we don't have that much to do until then. Besides, the people downstairs will probably expect us to be spending tonight…" Beau trails off suggestively. When Caleb doesn't seem to get it, Beau adds in a couple hand gestures and winks.

"Beauregard!" Caleb says.

"What?" Beau asks. "It's not like we're actually going to be doing it." For one, Beau hadn't known until recently that Caleb could like anyone, and she's still not sure that he likes girls. And also, Beau definitely does like girls.

Caleb scowls at her, and snaps his fingers. Frumpkin appears, and mews, rubbing on Caleb's lap. They had argued about bringing the cat into the inn- actually, the whole journey into town had been spent arguing about various topics- but Beau supposes it's alright in the safety of their own room.

Beau tests the bounce of the bed once more, twice, then startles at the knock on the door. Beau and Caleb exchange a look. Caleb goes to open the door, Beau hovering behind him with her staff behind her back.

But it's just the pleasant-looking human from the front desk. "Hello!" they say. "I was just checking to make sure that your honeymoon suite was exactly what you wanted."

"Oh, it's… great," Caleb says. "Meine Frau loves it, right?"

Beau nods. "It's, uh. Romantic."

"Oh, good." Beau is starting to wonder if they've been enchanted to always be so cheerful. She is not starting to wonder what would happen if she punched them in the face, because that would be bad. "Would you like to order room service?"

"Yes!" Beau says.

"Did Nott and I ever tell you about The Poor Man's Daughter?" Caleb leans over to mutter in Beau's ear. One of their scams, probably, except Beau can never remember them because there's so damn many. "Just play along."

He clears his throat. "I'm sorry, but I wish we could. Meine Frau and I spent all of our money just to go on this honeymoon. You understand, ja?"

"Oh, but… darling," Beau obviously isn't going to let Caleb win on the pet names front. He started it. She can be sappy too. "Can't we just get a little something? Oh, well, of course. I know better than to hope for something like that."

The human's face scrunches in sympathy. "Oh, dear," they say. "Well, perhaps I can have the kitchen send up a little something on the house."

"You would do that? For me and my sweetheart?" Beau asks. Caleb nudges her again. Too far. Beau smiles at the human.

"I'll send a little something up," they wink at Beau and Caleb. "Have a great honeymoon!"

"Oh," Caleb says. "Could you bring up some extra pillows, too? A lot of them."

They give him a strange look. "Of course."

Beau shuts the door behind them, and holds up a hand. Caleb stares at it for a moment. "You're supposed to high-five me," she says helpfully.

Tentatively, Caleb does.

"Nice one!" Beau says. "I like that one. What did you call it? The Poor Man's Daughter? What's it supposed to be like normally?"

Caleb ducks his head. "Usually Nott is the daughter. I am, of course, the poor man. She wants a pastry or something shiny from a window… you know the rest." He sits down on the bed and Frumpkin jumps up onto his shoulders in customary scarf position.

"It's pretty cool." Beau says. "I love free stuff."

"Yes, because we are poor," Caleb says.

"True," Beau says.

The food comes up a little while later, and it's actually pretty great stuff. A bottle of champagne, some dried jerky- half of which Beau shoves into her pockets out of habit- and some sort of sweet honey-flavored pudding.

They split their spoils sitting cross-legged on the bed.

Caleb spoons some of the pudding over to Frumpkin, who laps it up appreciatively. Then Caleb, because he's Caleb, keeps using the spoon with the cat spit on it. Beau watches in horrified fascination.

"Hey, what did that nickname mean earlier?" Beau asks as Frumpkin and Caleb continue to share. "The Zemnian one."

"Oh," Caleb says. "It just means 'my wife."

Beau laughs. "That's the worst pet name ever!" she says.

"It's accurate," Caleb defends. Beau laughs harder. The corners of his mouth start to curl up. "Shut up."

"No, no, it's great," Beau says. "From now on, your nickname is just My Husband."

"That's worse," Caleb says, but he's close to laughing now, in his reserved Caleb way. "At least mine is in another language."

"Too late, My Husband," Beau says. "You're stuck with me. We're married." She holds up a hand, upon which is one of Jester's rings, which is too big for her. It kinda-sorta matches the one on Caleb's hand, which is Molly's and is way too gaudy for Caleb.

Caleb rolls his eyes, and there's another knock on the door.

Caleb gets out of bed, padding to the door in his socks, and opens it to see the desk clerk again. They're holding pillows. "Oh, danke," Caleb says.

He comes back to the bed and dumps the pile of pillows onto it. Beau clears off the rest of their dishes and for lack of a better place to put them, puts them on the floor.

"Damn, Caleb, are you planning on smothering me in my sleep?"

"Nein," Caleb says, and rolls his eyes. Beau half-snorts at the pun. She watches as Caleb starts to methodically line up the pillows in the center of the bed, bisecting it exactly in half.

"Dude, seriously?" Beau asks. "I don't bite in my sleep."

Caleb makes a face. "Thank you, Beauregard." Apparently satisfied with his fortress of pillows, he climbs into the bed. "I hadn't been worried about that until now."

Caleb will sleep in the same bed as Nott, but, of course, Nott is Nott. Probably Beau doesn't want his Caleb cooties anyway.

Beau gets into bed too, not to be outdone, and pushes the whole line of pillows closer to his side so that her half of the bed is the larger one. He pops up over the pillow pile to glare at her. She grins at him.

Caleb huffs.

Frumpkin hops up onto one of the pillows, kneading his paws into the fabric.

"Did you summon your cat just so he could claw me if I get too close in the night?" Beau asks.

"No-o," Caleb says, unconvincingly.

"You're the worst husband ever." Beau leans over and extinguishes the candle by her side of the bed. Caleb does the same on his side, and the room is plunged into darkness.

"Goodnight, Meine Frau."

"Goodnight, My Husband."

Beau looks over and finds Frumpkin's eyes glowing at her creepily in the dark; Beau makes an I'm watching you sign with her two fingers and then rolls over to go to sleep.

Beau jolts awake the next morning at a knock on the door. She scrabbles up on her elbows, looking sleepily at the door. Next to her, she sees Caleb doing the same, Frumpkin doing his best scarf impression around his neck. "Don't come in, we're naked!" Beau says, half reflexively, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

Caleb, his hair sticking up from contact with the pillow, glares out of bleary eyes. She shrugs helplessly at him.

There's silence from behind the door a moment. "Right…" a voice says at last- female, not the desk person from the night before. "I was just checking if you would like breakfast in the room or down at the tavern?"

"Tavern," Beau says, and refrains from adding the go away mostly because she's too tired. Next to her, Caleb seems to be half melting back into the bed, trying to go back to sleep. Beau swats him from across the pillow fort.

"As you wish," says the woman from the other side of the door.

Her footsteps retreat. Beau slaps Caleb one more time- he wakes up completely- and climbs out of bed, stretching. "We gotta go spy on that meeting, remember, My Husband?" she asks, reaching down to touch her toes.

Caleb grunts and picks up Frumpkin, getting out of the bed with much less grace. "I remember everything, Beauregard," he says.

"Guess you forgot your manners though," she says quietly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

They get ready to go downstairs pretty quickly- despite what Beau had said, they both usually sleep in their clothes. Caleb straps on his book holsters and Beau redoes her ponytail, then Caleb snaps Frumpkin out of existence and they head downstairs.

The inn is already fairly bustling given the time of morning- figures the racist people would also be early risers.

They stake out a table near a wall. Beau and Caleb slide to sit side by side, not across, so that they have a view of the whole room. A human woman with short black hair, probably the one with the wakeup call, brings over a platter of food for them.

"She only gave us one," Beau says, dismayed.

"I think we are supposed to share, ja?" Caleb says. "Because that's what couples do, Meine Frau."

"Okay, My Husband," Beau says. "But if you eat more than your share of bacon I will stab you in the leg with a fork."

"That is fair," Caleb says, in the mild way that means Beau can never tell if he's joking or not.

They eat breakfast, and Beau watches the bar. There are about ten people inside at the moment, including the black-haired woman who has returned to the reception desk. There must also be people in the kitchen, but Beau can only hear them, not see.

The rest are normal-looking people; two women who might actually also be on their honeymoon, a raggedy-looking drunk, some old men and women playing cards, a farmer-type tiredly eating breakfast, and a man and a woman nursing drinks and hangover food at the same time.

Caleb gives her the last of the bacon, and Beau settles back against the wall with a sigh. "Waiting is the worst part," she says.

"Yes, well, I brought a book," Caleb says, as if that wasn't already implied.

Beau groans. "This is going to be the most boring day ever," she says, keeping one eye out on the door even as she digs through her napsack. "Luckily, I brought a book too."

Caleb looks over and raises an eyebrow. "Tusk Love 2:," he reads. "Muskier, Tuskier Love."

Beau grins. "Jester found it the other day and loaned it to me."

"Poor Fjord," Caleb says, returning to his book.

They wait there for about an hour; Beau gets through half of Tusk Love 2: Muskier, Tuskier Love, and Caleb finishes two books and is very smug about it.

At the end of the hour- and in the middle of a very intense scene involving Oskar and some very heavy-handed metaphors- someone approaches them. Beau tenses, sticking her finger in her book to mark her place. She nudges Caleb, who as usual has his nose so deep in his reading that he probably can't smell the cheap beer.

They look up together. It's the couple that Beau thought might be on their honeymoon, two women- one tall and the other short.

"Uh, hi," Beau says. "What's… up?"

"We just wanted to come over here and tell you what a cute couple you two are!" says the short one, beaming.

"Oh," Caleb says, "Really?"

"Uh-huh," the tall one says, holding onto her wife's hand and beaming. "I can never get Mary to just sit and read quietly with me!"

"Ha-ha, yep, that's what we're doing," Beau says, taking her hand out of her book and sliding it so it's on the bench beside her, and they can't see the cover. (Oskar is shirtless, and just barely covering up the also-shirtless maiden who seems to be hiding behind him)

"Are you also here for your honeymoon?" Caleb asks, either in a rare show of social competence or to distract from the smut book Beau is currently hiding.

"Uh-huh!" says the short one- Mary. "Well, we're passing through. We wanted to go to Zadash for the real honeymoon." The two women sit down on the bench in front of them, which slightly inhibits Beau's view of the door.

"Cool city," Beau says. "You should visit Chastity's Nook." Caleb kicks her under the table. She kicks him back, much harder. "Hey, what do you think of this place?"

Mary and her tall wife glance at each other.

"Well, it certainly is different from home," says the tall one. She leans in conspiratorially. "My first girlfriend was a tiefling."

Beau nods. "Yeah, is it just me, or are they kinda super racist here?" She tries to remember Fjord's lessons in subtlety. Nothing is coming to mind.

Mary looks around, a little worriedly. "Just that small-town mindset, you know," she says. "A shame, though."

The tall one nods, obviously eager to change the subject. "Oh, my, what a beautiful ring!" she says, taking Beau's hand. Her fingers reflexively curl up into a fist before she remembers and forces herself to relax.

She tries for a smile, and must have a modicum of success because Caleb doesn't kick her again. "Oh, My Husband always knows what I like," Beau says, even though Jester's ring isn't her style at all, is too big for her, and came out of the belly of a giant toad beast.

"Meine Frau chose mine," Caleb says, showing off Molly's ugly ring. It's so gaudy it actually kind of makes Beau's eyes hurt. "Don't you think she has wonderful taste?"

"Um," Mary says. "Those are very unique."

"We should be going," the tall one says, tugging on her wife's hand. "I was hoping to find a sewing store in town."

Beau and Caleb wave goodbye as they exit.

"Hey, we did it!" Beau says, and lifts up her hand for another high-five. Caleb gives her another weak one. "Nice one, My Husband."

"You know, Meine Frau, I don't think wives should kick their husbands."

"You did it first," Beau says, though admittedly hers had been much harder. "But the point is that we totally are passing as a married couple. We are the best, and Molly can suck it." Molly had laughed, a lot, when he'd heard which two of them were going undercover, and he hadn't even stopped when Beau had punched him in the arm.

"That is true," Caleb says. "I can return to my book now?"

"Yeah," Beau says. "We should make a handshake."

"Maybe later," Caleb says, glancing at the door. "I think that what we were waiting for is here."

Indeed, several rough-looking humans enter at about that same time. They look like regulars, which means that their intel must be good.

The Blood Purity Society meets here for their secret cult meetings. They basically run the town as the Nein had heard it. Because the town is so small, the Starosta of the city is also the postmaster, and the Lawmaster, and is in charge of the town's troops; which is all of two Crownsguard. The Starosta doesn't have much power to stop cults.

The people who have just walked in are the ringleaders- Beau and Caleb got inspected by one of the women before they could enter town. They control everything, from who lives there to what people buy; obviously, imported goods are frowned upon. Beau doesn't like them.

The Society sit down, waving to the woman at the front desk. She seems to know what to do, and disappears into the kitchen for a moment.

Caleb snaps his fingers and Frumpkin appears on the bench next to them. Beau scratches him on the head.

"I am afraid that looking through Frumpkin's eyes for too long in such a public place may be suspicious," Caleb says, carding his fingers through Frumpkin's fur.

Beau digs around in her bag for a moment, and comes out holding her night vision goggles. "Here!" she says proudly, and snaps them over Caleb's head.

"Ow," Caleb says.

"Now they can't see your eyes doing that creepy thing," Beau says. "You're welcome."

Caleb, rudely, doesn't seem all that impressed by this. He goes stiff in that way they've all come to learn means he's not home at the moment, and Frumpkin disappears and reappears again, winding around the legs of the Society.

One of them, a man with long hair pulled back into a braid, reaches down at gives Frumpkin a scritch- something Beau is certain is making Caleb completely miserable- but otherwise they ignore the new cat in their ranks.

"They are talking about some sort of plot," Caleb says, and goes silent again.

The front desk woman reappears with plates for all of them, setting them down from the head of the table down. Beau guesses that's where the leaders sit, and watches the people at that end a little closer.

There's the braided man, sitting next to the woman who must be the leader; a tall, straight-backed blonde woman with her hair shorn close to her ears. On the other side of her sits a gruff-looking man with dark brown skin and a hood pulled up around his face. Must be muscle, whereas the guy with the braid looks more like an advisor. Next to him is an olive-skinned woman with startling blue eyes, watching everything carefully, and sitting close to another dark woman with a tattoo curling up her neck. The rest look like standard grunts; fanatics who don't know what to do without a dumb cause to support.

"They are planning something big," Caleb murmurs, "But they are being vague about it in such a public place." Frumpkin goes winding his way down the table, looking for all appearances to be begging for scraps.

The people at the table suddenly stand up, and Caleb jerks back into his real self. Frumpkin hops onto his and Beau's table and rubs himself on them.

"They're going up to a room to discuss in private," Caleb says, pushing up the goggles so that they're resting in his hair.

"We have to get in on that meeting somehow," Beau says.

"I agree," Caleb says. "But I do not think they will let a cat into the room, and I cannot bamf him in there where they can all see."

Beau considers this for a moment, then feels her face split with a wide grin. "Well, My Husband," she says. "You know you and Nott's cons? How would you feel about making one of our own?"

The Wife and Her Husband only takes about two minutes to plan, but all in all, Beau thinks it's a fairly solid plan.

Maybe this is because she gets to yell at Caleb.

Beau stomps down the upper hallway in the inn. "I'm just saying, I think our wedding cake was a little dry!"

"And I think it was perfect!" Caleb says back, not quite as loudly- that's not Caleb's way- but at least sounding just as annoyed. "You have, how do you say, schlechten Geschmack. Bad taste."

"I do not!" Beau says, as they near the door at the end of the hall. The Society had entered only two or so minutes ago, which means they probably haven't had time to get into any of the good stuff yet, especially with the ruckus Beau and Caleb are making. Then Caleb's words register, and she gets actually offended. "Hey! I do not have bad taste!"

Caleb makes an eh noise.

Beau glares at him. "You're the one who's always smelling his food before he eats it! You don't have to smell every bite, Caleb!" She kicks the door at the end of the hall open and barges in without looking at the interior.

"You get maggots in your food a few times and see if you don't smell your food, Beauregard," Caleb says, then blinks, seemingly in surprise, at the interior of the room. "Ah," he says. "This is not our room, I think."

"Uh, no duh," Beau says, crossing her arms and getting really into the role. She turns to the group- all ten of the Blood Purity Society are staring, surprised, at them. "Do you think this guy would do the cooking every once in a while? No! Never!"

Caleb shrinks behind her a little- he doesn't like being looked at by so many people, Beau guesses- but he rallies admirably and Beau hears the faint sound of him snapping his fingers.

"Because you will never do the dishes!" Caleb says, though usually on the road Jester or Fjord cook, and they almost never bother with real dishes.

Beau makes an offended sound. "Can you believe him?"

One of the cultists shakes her head. "Look, um, this isn't your room."

Beau snorts. "No duh. He has a terrible sense of direction."

"No, you need to get out," tries another one. "This is our room."

Caleb huffs. "We were having a private conversation."

Finally, one of them gets to his feet- it's the big, bodyguard-looking one. He puts a hand on both Beau and Caleb and starts to steer them out.

Beau scoffs. "You don't have to push," she says, as they are summarily pushed out of the room. The door shuts behind them, and there's a final ker-chink of a lock to really emphasize the point. "Rude!" she yells at the door, then heads down the hallway to their actual room.

"Well, My Husband?" she asks. "Mission accomplished?"

"Ja, Meine Frau," Caleb says. "Frumpkin is under the bed." He goes to sit on the bed himself, leaning against the headboard and then going still. His eyes go that strange, flickery sky-blue.

"I could braid your hair right now," Beau tells him. "Or draw angry eyebrows on you."

Instead, she sits on the floor beside the bed, holding her bo staff up so that she can defend them if something happens.

"They are talking again," Caleb informs her. "The blonde one is giving a speech." He frowns. "She says that now is the time to move."

"On what?" Beau asks, before she remembers he can't hear her.

Caleb's brow furrows. "They want to kill the Starosta."

They had guessed that the Starosta was a little less willing to bend to the cult than she seemed. They had actually planned to bring evidence to her if they found anything- hopefully she could bring it to a higher court outside of town. It seemed they were right. The Starosta was a threat to the Society. Not maybe a good thing in this instance, though.

Caleb jumps, and bangs his head on the headboard as he comes back to himself. "They're planning to do it right now."

"Right now, right now?" Beau asks.

Caleb snaps, and Frumpkin appears on the bed, purring.

"Aw, hell," Beau says.

Beau and Caleb can see the Society's cart from their window.

They travel around in it, an ostentatious and closed-in thing, mostly for the status but also probably because they're entitled losers. The Society also usually leave it parked around town wherever, because everyone knows better than to mess with it.

Well, usually.

Beau and Caleb climb out the window so that no one will see them leave. Beau leaves a suggestive do not disturb sign on their room door- anyone who comes looking for them will figure they made up from their fight, and were still in the process of making up. That would keep any suspicious eyes out for a while.

"I do not know where Nott is," Caleb says, a little anxiously. "So I cannot send the team a Message."

"Yeah, I know," Beau says. "So we're gonna hitch a ride with these guys."

"What?" Caleb asks. "No, Meine Frau, we are not, because that is suicide."

"Too late," Beau says, climbing underneath the workings of the cart. "I'm already down here, My Husband."

She hears Caleb swear in Zemnian, then awkward jostling as he joins her under the cart.

"I hate you," he says, nose smeared with dust from the ground.

The cart has a little lip underneath it that's fairly easy to roll onto, so long as they put the rest of their body-weight on the support slats running across the bottom of the cart. Beau beams at him. "C'mon, you're having fun."

"Why would anyone think that this was fun?" Caleb asks.

Beau just grins again in response.

Then there's the sound of footsteps, the heavy boots of what can only be the Society, judging by the number. They don't seem to notice the 200-odd pounds their cart has gained, chattering and jostling amongst themselves.

They keep quiet as the cart dips under the weight of the cult getting into it.

I hate you, Caleb mouths, and Beau detaches one hand from holding onto the cart to blow him a kiss, then flip him off. This is how Beau shows love.

The cart bu-bumps down the road. Beau can't see much from her current position, but she's pretty sure they're on their way to the Starosta's house. She's starting to think they should have found some way to let the Mighty Nein know where they were going. If they die here, Jester's going to be really mad at them.

The cart finally comes to a stop after a couple minutes riding. She looks over at Caleb; windswept and vaguely irritated-looking, but he looks ready to move.

Beau drops down so that she's on her belly in the dirt. She can't see much from here, just the edge of a building and some feet. The Starosta's house isn't nearly as affluent as some of the other officials' houses the Nein have come across in their travels. This town is not a wealthy one, and trade is even more restricted because they won't trade with non-humans.

Peeking out from the other side of the wagon, Beau can see that there's no one on the other edge. She gestures for Caleb to follow, then scooches out from the cart. She presses against the wall of it.

This area of town is basically just estate houses, which means that there's a lot of open space. But the Starosta has a barn directly across from her house; which in this case means that it's directly across from Beau and Caleb.

Beau peeks up to look at the Society, just a hand's-breadth away on the other side of the cart. They're not paying attention.

"Ready?" Beau mouths.

"For what?" Caleb shakes his head.

Beau counts off on her fingers: one, two, three, and then runs on three. Caleb seems to get the hint, sprinting after her. Beau doesn't look until they've gotten to the barn. She skids to a slightly clumsy stop, almost loses her feet, and peers around the corner. No racists are the wiser.

She breathes a sigh of relief.

"Now what?" Caleb asks, and snaps absently. Frumpkin winds his way around his shoulders and Caleb reaches up a hand to scritch his ears. "We are outnumbered."

"Don't have to tell me," Beau says. "I can count." Caleb opens his mouth. "Oh, ha-ha, very funny. Yes, I know how to do that. We can't all be speed-readers."

Caleb closes his mouth with a quirk that suggests he would be smiling if he wasn't Caleb. "That is not what I was going to say," he lies. "I could send Frumpkin into the house."

"Could work," Beau says, "But then what? It's not like Frumpkin can warn the Starosta, or protect her if things get hairy." Frumpkin's tendency to poof out of the mortal plane always seems to crop up at the exact worst time, and no one likes Caleb when it takes a while to get Frumpkin back.

Beau looks around the corner again. "I think we're going to have to go into the house," she says. "Maybe we can smuggle the Starosta out or something."

"That sounds like a terrible idea," Caleb says.

"So you're down?"

"Ja."

"Sweet. High-five."

They do. Watching the Society, they seem to be arguing about what to do next. The front door will probably perplex them for a while- Beau had caught a glimpse of it earlier, and it's too heavy for them to brute-force open unless they have a troll or a battering ram- which will give them a little time.

They're being quiet enough for now that Beau isn't even sure the Starosta knows there's someone here to kill her.

"Cause a distraction so they all look the other way?" Beau asks.

Caleb nods, digs through the pockets of his ratty coat looking for something to use. He emerges with his copper wire and gives her a mischievous look. "Any ideas?" he asks.

Beau does have an idea.

Caleb points at the biggest, dumbest-looking one of the group- a woman who stands taller and twice as wide as Yasha, who has that special glint of nothing going on behind the eyes. "Your mother is so ugly," he says into the wire, Zemnian accent flattened out a little into a Common drawl that sounds sort of like Beau, "That basilisks look at her and they turn to stone."

The woman stands for a moment, clearly parsing out the meaning of the insult. A few seconds later, she says "Hey!" and punches the man behind her.

There's a brief but vicious tussle, as people keep breaking in to try to break it up and then end up brawling themselves.

Beau and Caleb take the opportunity to sneak around the house.

It's a two-story building, built unimpressively but nicely- the town may not have a lot of money, but the Starosta is practical and has a pretty well-built home.

Beau climbs up the outer wall easily, and slides the window open. She gets half inside, straddling the sill, and reaches down to pull Caleb in. They tumble in.

Beau sits up and glances around. Like the outside of the house, modest, but tasteful. She finds it hard to respect or trust any politician, but Beau thinks maybe this one isn't so bad. She definitely doesn't deserve to be murdered by racist losers, anyway.

Caleb glances out the window as he shuts it. "The one with the braid seems to have calmed them down," he says. "But I think one of them is unconscious."

Beau grins. "Let's go find the Starosta, shall we?"

Caleb nods.

It's a shame they don't have Nott to check for traps, Beau thinks, as she eases the door open. The room they're exiting looks like a bedroom of some kind; if Beau had to guess, the Starosta will be in the study at this time of day.

No traps set in the hall.

"Did you ever think this was a bad idea?" Caleb asks, under his breath, as they creep forward. He's following her only a few footsteps behind, probably so that he won't get stuck in any traps she manages to set off.

"Yeah, duh," Beau says. "But, like, they're going to kill her, and isn't it our job to stop stuff like that from happening? I don't know, man, I'm winging it too."

"I would be interested," says an icy voice from behind them, "In seeing what you think as well, sir. After all, this is my home you've broken into."

Beau and Caleb freeze. Beau winces.

They turn around slowly.

There's the Starosta- Hest, Beau thinks is her name. She's levelling a pretty deadly-looking crossbow at them.

Beau tries to smile. Caleb nudges her until she stops.

"Damn it," Beau says.

"No, do go on," Starosta Hest says. She's a human woman with ruddy red hair, in her thirties, which in Beau's experience is pretty young for an official like this. Maybe she's new. Probably Beau knows what happened to the last one, and it has to do with the chuckleheads outside. "I'm very interested in knowing who wants to kill me."

"We do not want to kill you," Caleb says. "We are here to help."

"Yeah!" Beau says. "We're with the Mighty Nein?"

She raises an eyebrow at that.

"Someday someone will recognize the name," Beau says. "Anyway, we're trying to stop those Blood Purity Society losers! They're outside."

Starosta Hest's mouth purses. "That's unfortunate," she says.

"Where are the Crownsguard?" Beau asks. "Shouldn't they be, like, protecting you and stuff?"

"At this time of day?" Hest asks. "They're delivering mail."

"Ouch," Beau says. "But this means you do need our help."

Finally, she lowers the crossbow. "Fine," she says. "You two have honest faces."

"Really?" Caleb asks.

"If I'm going to be working with you, what are your names?"

Beau grins. "I'm Beau Fancybottom," she says. "And this is my husband, Caleb Fancybottom."

"I hate you," Caleb says, as Starosta Hest leads them into her study.

Beau punches his arm companionably. "It was funny, though, huh?"

"No," Caleb says, but he's obviously lying. "Stop punching me. You would punch your poor husband?"

Beau grins back.

The Starosta is rummaging through her desk, gathering up presumably important papers and stuff. If Beau's learned anything from being (unwillingly) around rich and powerful people in her early years, is that there's always important paperwork. Storm a rich dude's house, first thing he'll go for is the paperwork. Second is the shiny things, which Beau likes stealing much more.

Hest stands up. She has the paperwork tucked in a bag by her side, and she's also holding her crossbow.

"I'm ready to go," she says.

"Great," Beau says. "Uh, us too." She turns to Caleb and whispers. "How are we gonna get out of here again?"

He shrugs.

"Okay," Beau says. "I'm guessing you have a back door. All rich people do." The really rich ones have secret tunnels leading to safety and quick middle-of-the night evacuations, but Beau doubts Hest would have left that one out.

"Yes," Starosta Hest says. "But no doubt they'll be watching that too."

"We can use that," Beau says. "My Husband, how do you feel about making up another one of those cons for ourselves?"

Caleb gives her a thumbs-up.

Caleb names their new con Seeing Double, because Beau had gotten to name the last one. It's a good plan.

Starosta Hest's dress is much harder to get into than Beau had anticipated. This is why Beau never wears dresses.

"It would be easier if you took your monk clothes off first, Beauregard," Caleb says, and grunts with effort as he yanks the back ties of the dress tight, and finally manages to make it fit.

"What if I have to move fast?" Beau complains. "I can just, like, rip the dress off."

"I cannot argue with that," Caleb says, and disappears back into the wardrobe to search for something else.

In his absence, Beau turns to Hest, who is watching the proceedings with a visible sense of misgiving. "So how come these guys want to kill you anyway?" she asks.

"I am scheduled to meet with the Lawmaster in the next city over," Hest says. "To get allies and roust the cult from my town."

"Ah," Beau says, "That'll do it. Good for you, though."

Caleb emerges from the closet holding a wide, floppy hat. It's not very pretty, but it'll cover Beau's face well enough that no one would immediately guess that she wasn't Hest. Beau puts it on.

Beau glances out the window. The cultists have long-since organized themselves; the blonde woman who seems to be their leader had separated them out so all the windows and doors are now covered.

Beau ducks back before she can be seen. "We're good to go."

"Are you sure this will work?" Hest asks.

"Sure!" Beau says. "We're the Mighty Nein!"

"There's only two of you."

"Trust me, it does not make sense normally either," Caleb says.

Hest sighs.

Beau high fives the other Starosta Hest as they split off in the hallway downstairs.

Beau goes to the front door, and just out of sight she can hear the other Hest at the back.

Beau opens the door, just a crack, and looks out. Because her outfit isn't completely convincing- Beau is a few shades darker than the real Hest, after all- Beau had gotten the door facing away from the sun, so that they all have to squint at her against the light.

"Excuse me?" she says. "What are you doing here? Did we have an appointment?"

"An appointment with death," says the thug standing there.

"Wow," Beau says. "Did you think of that one all day?"

The thug scowls, apparently hurt.

"Whatever, let's just kill her," another thug growls, holding a sword.

Beau smiles at him. She doesn't try to make it not scary. "I wouldn't do that."

"Huh? Why?"

"We got 'er!" a voice yells out from the back of the house.

Beau grins and points that way. "That's why."

"Uh." Thug One looks at his friend. She shrugs. Thug One scowls. "Us too!" he calls out to the back of the house.

A moment of heavily confused silence.

"Ummm," the person from the other side of the house calls.

"For gods' sakes!" someone yells from the front, by the cart. "Bring them both."

A hand shoots out and grabs Beau's arm- she resists grabbing and subsequently breaking it only because she's biding her time. They drag her to the courtyard by the barn, where the cart is waiting with the horses still hitched to it, huffing and stamping anxiously.

The blonde woman, the leader, is standing there with her arms crossed as Beau and the second Starosta Hest are dragged in front of her. It was her speaking earlier.

"Well, well," she says. "What do we have here?"

"Have you guys been taking villain classes?" Beau asks. Hest watches the proceedings icily, arms crossed as she scowls. "Because it sounds like you just got to the catchphrases section."

The woman gestures to the man with the braid.

He stalks forward and rips Beau's hat off. She smiles, toothily, back at him. In the light of day without the hat, there's no way she could pass as Hest.

"That's not her," the blonde woman sighs, seemingly disappointed in their trickery attempts. "Make sure you kill the real Starosta first, but then just get rid of the other one too."

The cultists step forward eagerly. Cultists are always excited for a little murder. Beau holds up a hand. "Sorry, guys, but I wouldn't do that either."

The woman rolls her eyes. "I'm getting tired of this. Tell me, why not?"

"Because," Beau says. "That's not her either."

All eyes swing around to Starosta Hest.

Actually, not Starosta Hest, but Caleb. He drops the Disguise Self with sufficient sense of dramatic timing, and waves. "Hallo," he says, wiggling his fingers. Then he drops to the ground.

This is just in time for Beau to punch the nearest thug- the woman with the blue eyes. The woman goes flying back into the thug just above Caleb, who rolls out of the way as the two cultists go down in a tangle of limbs.

Caleb gets to his feet and blows a handful of sand out into the air; four of the thugs fall asleep instantly. Beau spins so they're back-to-back and raises a hand so he can high-five her backwards, which he does.

Beau reaches into the folds of the dress and pulls out a few of her throwing stars, flicking her wrist and winging one of them, getting a star stuck into the meat of another's arm.

"You can give up now and we will not hurt you any more," Caleb says, and he and Beau start backing away from the main group of (now greatly reduced and injured) thugs.

"Take the man's advice," Beau says.

The blonde woman snarls. "We're going to kill you," she says, drawing a long, long sword from a sheath somewhere on her back. "And then we're going to find the real Starosta, and kill her too, wherever she is."

Beau grins. Waits for it.

"You're welcome to try," Hest says. It's quite an entrance- she pulls up in the Society's own cart, hands gripping the reins and a supremely unimpressed look on her face. She doesn't actually stop, rolling to a slightly slower pace so that Beau and Caleb can jump onto the back, which they do.

Beau flips off the cultists on her way out, because she can.

Hest flicks the reins again and the horses take off.

They seem more than happy to go for the run, probably used to a life carting loser cultists around. Maybe Nott will want to name a few more horses. Or they can sell them once they get to another town- Beau could use some more ninja stars and she's more than certain that Caleb needs paper again.

Beside her, Caleb swears in Zemnian. "They are still following us," he says.

Craning her head to look, Beau sees another three cultists, sprinting after them. She frowns, reaching into her pocket for ideas. Her hand hits something, and she grins brightly, bringing her prize out.

"Want to do the honors, My Husband?"

"No, Meine Frau, I think you would get more pleasure out of it."

Beau grins and cups her hands around her mouth. "Ball bearings!" she shouts.

She sees the cultists' brows wrinkle as they try to parse this out. "What?" one of them calls back.

Beau throws the ball bearings into the street.

All three slip.

Beau climbs the cart so that she's sitting right behind Starosta Hest. She leans over the seat and puts her chin on her arms and grins. "How did we do for a rescue party?" she asks.

Caleb picks his way over the cart carefully as well and joins her.

"Well, I didn't die," Hest says.

"For us, a compliment," Beau says.

She had picked the hat off the ground after the cultist had yanked it off; now she plops it on Caleb's head. He looks at her.

"You look like you would burn easily," she says.

Caleb sighs, but he leaves the hat on.

"Hey," Beau says, leaning up one more time to look at Hest. "I don't suppose there's any kind of reward for saving your life?" The Nein are already being paid by some of the landowners in the town next door who want to trade in preparation of a hard winter, but they can always use some extra gold.

"Ja," Caleb says, getting a spark in his eye that's rare but is always a pleasure. "After all, there is still the honeymoon to plan for Meine Frau and myself…"

"… And then Oskar says that Guenivere shouldn't love him any more, because the acts he committed to get back to her make him no longer worthy of love. And then Guenivere confesses it was her who killed her Aunt Mika."

"Nein," Caleb says. "But she promised her father that she did not."

"Uh-huh," Beau agrees, pushing a tree branch across so he can pass. "And then Oskar takes out the prophecy sword and… oh, hi, guys."

"So," Fjord says, as Caleb and Beau arrive at the meeting spot they'd agreed upon outside of town, almost four hours late. "Anything interesting happen?"

"Not really," Beau says.

"Oh, Caleb, you got a new hat," Nott says approvingly. Either she doesn't notice or care that it's a girl's hat and is very ugly.

"Where did you get the dress?" Jester asks, plucking at the fabric around Beau. "It looks like it used to be very pretty."

Used to be is probably a good phrase- Hest had dropped them off in town and given them their gold but refused to go any further than that. She had a racist cult to get rid of, after all. But she hadn't asked for the dress back, probably because it was covered in dust and bad guy blood.

It's even worse now after the walk through town and then the woods. Beau had finally just ripped the bottom off the thing, so that a good three inches of her monk pants are showing through.

"Looks like you two had an adventure," Molly says, grinning and slinging an arm around Beau, and giving Caleb a companionable nudge.

"I finally finished Tusk Love 2: Muskier, Tuskier Love," Beau says. "And we got Caleb a hat."

"I am not keeping it," Caleb says.

"Yeah, you are," Beau says. "You're my husband, I think that means you have to do what I say."

"No," Fjord says, at the same time as Jester says, cheerfully, "Of course!"

This, of course, starts a round of bickering, which goes on for long enough that even Beau loses the thread of the conversation. They walk away with their pockets heavy with gold- even heavier once they report back to the people who had hired them.

"A good mission, My Husband," Beau tells Caleb as they hike back to the cart.

"We didn't die at least, Meine Frau," Caleb agrees.

"We even made friends!" Beau says. "And more importantly, money."

"I would fake-marry you any time," Caleb says, blank-faced.

Beau laughs and punches him on the arm.

SOME TIME LATER

The Mighty Nein cause trouble most places they go. Beau, aware of this and also hungry, makes a beeline for the bar at the tavern to order food before everything goes to hell. Molly follows her, presumably because the bartender is hot.

"Hello, darling," he tells the bartender, a drow with her ears pierced all along the ears, enough so that she almost manages to make Molly look less gaudy. The drow blushes.

"What can I get for you?" she asks.

"Food," Beau grunts.

Molly grins and leans over the bar, both of them basically ignoring Beau. "Why is it so crowded in here today?"

The drow leans in, mirroring Molly. Beau rolls her eyes. "It's the Bright Moon Festival," she says.

Oh, right- Beau had seen the shiny moon outside, a once-a-year thing in this part of the world, but hadn't thought much of it. They've been travelling for a week straight, interspersed only with the rare bandit attack or gnoll run-in.

"Oh?" Molly asks. "And what's that?"

Sometimes Beau forgets he's, like, technically a baby, so he doesn't always know about stuff like this. She also doesn't like to think about that, which is why she doesn't.

"Oh!" the drow says, curling a strand of white hair around her very pale finger. "It's great! It's the night for lovers, you know. There's a festival in the town square, and a lot of weddings take place today, and it's said to be good luck to take your first date on the Bright Moon."

Poor Fjord is going to be out a room tonight.

Beau clears her throat. "Yeah, yeah," she says. "You got food in this place?"

The drow finally tears her eyes away from Molly. "Oh, sure," she says. "What do you want?"

"Any specials for the Bright Moon Festival?" Molly asks.

"Oh, sure," the drow says. "But that's only for married couples."

Occasionally, Beau can feel an evil idea brewing in her soul, rising up from her toes into her mouth. This is not one of those ideas. This is a great idea.

"I'm married!" she says.

Molly turns to her with a look of abject delight.

The drow looks more disbelieving than anything. "You are," she says.

"Uh-huh," Beau says, nodding encouragingly. Obviously Molly can't be her husband, not with the way he was flirting, but she has the perfect alternative. "I'll call him over!" She looks across the tavern and cups a hand around her mouth. "MY HUSBAND!"

Caleb startles and drops his book, which Nott neatly catches before it hits the ground. He glares, annoyed, up at Beau.

She beams at him and motions him to come over.

Do I have to? he mouths.

Beau motions harder.

He sighs and stands up, saying something to Nott and Jester before coming over.

"Yes, Meine Frau?" he asks.

The drow raises an eyebrow. "This is your husband?"

"Ja," Caleb says, to his credit not missing a beat. "Why?"

Beau snags Caleb by the waist and pulls him into her side; Molly makes a surprised sound like a honking laugh cut off into his sleeve.

"This lady was just telling us about the couple's discount for Bright Moon," Beau says, feeling one of Caleb's spell components poke her in the side. He's so bony. He stomps on her foot behind the counter where the drow can't see.

"Oh?" Caleb says. "That is good; Meine Frau and I do not have much money."

"We just went on our honeymoon," Beau says confidentially. "It was beautiful."

"We stayed at a little inn," Caleb says. "What kind of discount do we get?"

The drow looks a little disgruntled now. Molly may not be getting some tonight after all- you're welcome, Fjord. "Well, there's a free meal included."

Sweet.

Beau grins.

"Fjoooord! Next time can we be married?" Jester says, as Caleb and Beau share a Bright Moon Plate. There's dessert coming, too.

Fjord coughs, reaching a shade of green that Beau had not yet realized he could attain. "Uh-" he says.

"I want to be married!" Nott huffs. "I like free things!"

Yasha is sticking around for a while, which means that she's also sitting at the table watching them with a sense of amusement and bewilderment.

Beau knocks Molly's wandering hand away from the plate of food. "Too late, suckers. Should have thought of that earlier."

Caleb hands Nott a piece of meat off the plate, which she devours in short order.

"How come she gets to eat some and I don't?" Molly complains.

"She's my mother-in-law," Beau says solemnly, which is when Fjord laughs so hard he spits ale out his nose.